Britney Spears nails £11m book deal – plus other celebs that sparked bidding wars
Britney Spears has signed a “record-breaking” publishing deal for a tell-all memoir about her rise to fame, her relationship with her family and her life under a conservatorship for more than a decade.
Page Six reported on Monday that publisher Simon & Schuster had secured the deal for the pop star’s memoir for a rumoured £11m after a massive bidding war involving multiple publishers.
While fans of the Toxic singer will be desperate to get her warts-and-all version of events, Spears isn't the only celebrity whose memoirs have sparked a huge battle between publishers.
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The deal is believed to be one of the biggest of all time – behind that of Barack and Michelle Obama who signed a rumoured £48m deal with Penguin Random House back in 2017 to write their books.
The Obama books prompted an auction between several major publishing houses and the eventual undisclosed sum agreed upon was said to be a record for US presidential memoirs.
The Obamas said they were going to donate a substantial part of their fee to charities, including their own Obama Foundation, while Penguin Random House also donated a million books in the Obama family name.
Michelle's book Becoming sold more than 14m copies worldwide, while Barack's A Promised Land was the bestselling book of 2020 in the US.
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Publishers Penguin Random House also secured the deal to publish Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle's books.
Again, there was a fierce bidding war for the deal – no doubt prompted by the couple's bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview – with Harry himself believed to have overseen the auction.
The bids were rumoured to have started at around £18m and could have reached as much as £29m for the four-book deal.
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Harry's first explosive memoir, which is said to explore the highs and lows of his extraordinary life, is due out this year. But it is believed the second will not be published until after the Queen's death.
Meanwhile, Markle is planning a "wellness" book, the Daily Mail reported, and it is unclear what the fourth book will be. One thing's for sure, it's guaranteed to fly off the shelves.